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Parking is a vital part of modern life. One California official calculates that every new car registered in his area requires four or five parking spaces. For the typical car or van, there should be storage place at home – the beloved garage. Another is most likely needed at a work place. Very few in America get to work by transit. Census statistics show a steady decline. A few walk, but most American commuters drive. Around the world, the work scene is no longer an eight-hour stint in one place. Most people travel around a lot while doing their work. French urban planners comment that today’s citizens have become “urban nomads” – constantly in motion stopping for a while here and there.
Urban managers do well to pay great attention to the supply of parking. It is an industry that is vital to today’s commerce, industry and government, and it can be profitable. It can make or break retail trade. People want to park near stores, restaurants, or other facilities, where stopping off is part of daily life. Merchants insist they will lose business if folks can’t park at their curb.
The challenge is that this is typically impossible. Not everyone can park curbside in a district of any size and density. In many zones parking becomes part of a pecking order that is sometimes contentious. There are fees and penalties whereby perfectly lovable and responsible people become reviled as today’s parking enforcement officers – the “metermaids” of the 20th Century.
Battles over parking rights within prestigious institutions are legendary. That is a different topic. If you want to hear amazing stories, ask a parking manager about VIP parking. Query too about complaints and reactions to hikes in fees. Woe behold the parking managers on the day who confronts the paying public with demands for a few more dollars or new restrictions!
The real parking battles, however, are with economics. The physical reality is that not everyone can park in the center. Urban principles, in fact, dictate quite the opposite. The very center belongs to all. It should be civic – clean and landscaped for the public. Emergency vehicles and motorized mobility-assist devices may need to access the very core. Central parking should be expensive to discourage long-term use. Low-cost and maybe free parking should be located on the periphery, preferably linked by greenways or a gently-scaled APM to facilitate local circulation.
Remote parking linked to a large center by an APM is well illustrated at Newark and Chicago O’Hare Airports, and at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
So what do you need to do? First of all, an inventory of existing parking facilities should be done. Not just the number of spaces, but also the kind of space (size, lot or garage, etc.), utilization, turnover, charges, and costs (capital and O&M). That gives you a lot of information. An analystic consultant can help put it into a format that helps guide public parking policies.
The next steps center on a visioning process for the larger district. It might be a downtown area, an university or medical campus, a neighborhood center, strip retail, or your own special district. What program for the next ten years will move it in the direction of that vision? The necessary parking and circulation system should derive from the answer.
An APM can be an integral part of that land use and parking future. Its stations can be placed inside garages and building lobbies. Its revenues can be collected by monthly subscriptions – like many parking rentals and telecommunication services. It would be a new kind of Park + Ride service. Professional management can turn it into a community resources to get information to the local residents, workers, visitors, and commerce.
 A comprehensive approach to parking brings many benefits. |
 Radically different ways to supply parking are possible with APMs. |